Hi Alain,

I am listening now to an Album I know really well Wise Up Ghost - Elvis Costello (a stonking good album by the way IMHO). It just sounds superb no hint of harshness a very definite improvement. Elvis's albums have never been at the top of my list for sound quality over produced and hard sounding generally but now I am beginning to wonder. It just does not sound hard anymore.

The dexa modules were isolated from PE outside the case and are also now isolated inside the case. So that just leaves RF. As you say very interesting.

But also interesting is that these (what must be) small changes to the clock on the USB link have such a clearly audible effect on the sound. Whatever the reason USB clocks sure are important to sound quality.

It would be great if in 2014 we can find out why!!

Cheers

Paul

Today I found a home inside the pc for the dexa clock and its power supply. They are both tucked well away in the bottom of the hard disc partition of the pc case well shielded from the rest of the pc behind metal partitions and fully isolated from PE.

The surprise (or maybe not that much of a surprise) is that the sound is even better than when they were outside the pc case. A very welcome result. The sound is incredibly smooth but remains dynamic and and attention grabbing when required.

Nick is coming down on Friday so it will be interesting to see what he thinks - things have progressed muchly since his last visit here!!

Mani - you are welcome to join us let me know.

Cheers

Paul

Hi Anthony - yes possibly also could be earthing I had to connect the ps and clock earth's to that of the pc. Whereas outside the pc they are floating.

But the strange thing is that the Dexa website states that the mounting screws are earth points, however, I checked them out and they appear not to be connected to anything.

Anyway ps and clock isolated from "earth" inside a project box connected to pe hopefully will sort it.

More tests today.

P

With the Dexa's (USB clocks) firmly established in my system they (or at least the PC Dexa) is less established in terms of its final location. So today I moved the clock and its PS from its temporary location (lying at the side of and outside the PC case) to the inside of the PC case. First I located the clock on a "dummy" PCI card with the PS on the inside back of the PC case. Mmmm something did not sound quite right. So I moved it back outside - OK sounded OK again. So then I tried another location inside the PC this time well out of the way inside. But still the excellent SQ was reduced - slight untidyness in the higher registers but the bass was impacted. This maybe a small change in SQ compared with where my system used to be but it highlighted one of the really big changes the Dexa's made to the SQ and that is in the bass.

Just moving the Dexa's a short distance to the inside of the PC case impacts the bass. It gets a bit "fat" and overblown. OK this maybe a small change overall but now that I am used to hearing excellent bass quality with the Dexa's when it is diminished even slightly you really notice a difference.

OK I will find a way to install the Dexa and its PS in the PC without impacting SQ (parts on the way!!). But this brings me on to the main reason for this post and it is that Less Bass really is much More Bass now in this system - tight controlled accurate sounds on the face of it less than fat and bloated (even slightly). And it also goes right through the mid range impacting the accuracy and tonal quality - at least to these tired old ears it does.

Another always surprising thing is that with each of these improvements is just how much better poor quality recordings sound.

Onwards and upwards to 2014!!

Cheers

Paul

Peter - I increased IMDisk playback drive to 3T (from the recommended 2T) and all now appears to be OK.

Cheers

Paul

There is no comparison in the sound of my system a year ago compared with now. Even the most difficult albums now sound good.

Highlights of this year have included new home made speakers (big surprise), room speaker positioning, XX working on W8 and other tweaks by Peter, system earthing changes (unfathomable), new home made bridged GC amplifier (was it this year I am losing track). clocks in USB (both ends) and other changes that I have lost track of.

AND the award for the biggest improvement: -

Jointly shared between the new USB clocks and the speakers.

Closely followed by the change in earthing arrangements.

But then all changes are cumulative so it is not easy to separate them.

BUT for sure THIS IS IT there will not be any more significant improvements this coming year. I was listening last night and thinking that it is just not possible to get better than this :..................................

IS IT? What will we be saying next year at this time.

Anyway a BIG BIG thanks to Peter for all his incredible hard work and to everyone contributing to this forum and making it by some margin the BEST hi fi related forum on the World Wide Wonderweb. Keep it up chaps and here's looking forward to next year.

OH and a VERY big thanks to Nick who was the INSPIRATION behind much of my system - from building GC amps to other tweaks and Dexa clocked USB link. Cheers Mate I owe you a beer or three.

Cheers

Paul

So there I am happily listening to music without problems for maybe 3-5 albums then randomly (actually it seems to be between tracks) the music stops and I get the "Failed to Set Sample Rate" message. Changing XX settings makes no difference. It only happens in W8 no problems in W7.

To get XX working again I have to close Engine 3 and the XX Gui then start up XX Gui again and then it works OK. Sometimes that is not enough and I have to clear the xx drive.

From talking to Nick and Mani they seem to get the same problem (without actually comparing notes in small detail).

For sure this never happens under W7.

Paul

Hey Brian - no problem these are probably for Bach aficionado's great that someone else appreciates these.

Cheers

Paul

Hey Booleary

It is "Demidenko plays Bach - Busoni on Hyperion CDA 66566" and Bach Piano Transcriptions -2 Busoni Demidenko" again on Hyperion CDA67324.

Paul

I should have said " transcribing Bach's organ music for piano" but it is interesting that he envisaged other keyboards before the were even invented as you point out.

Paul

I recently came across Ferruccio Busoni (Demidenko on Hyperion) he was the first to transcribe Bach organ works for keyboard. Wow what a find. I have been listening to Bach for the best part of 50 years and these are by a long way the best I have heard. There are so many dry plodding interpretations of Bach out there that miss out on what Bach is all about (in my humble opinion).

I have never heard Toccata (although did Bach write Toccata? some think not!!) on keyboard capture anything like the magnificence of organ (and maybe it never can) it always sounds disappointing. The Busoni version really captures something I have never heard before. The Adagio and Fugue in C is really special. These really capture the emotion, fun and playfulness of Bach like I have never heard before. Maybe you need to be a life long Bach fan (and to have heard "all the others") to really appreciate this Busoni but oh boy what a find!

Paul

As mentioned last night Nick I cannot at this time because my PC will not boot unless I reset BIOS and load default BIOS values every time because my PC does not like the external clock running on the pcie card before it boots up or so it seems.

Very frustrating.

And wow there is some really interesting stuff here this seems to be a pandora's box with more in it than I could have imagined.

Paul

I avoided trying these settings because so much else has changed in my system I wanted to let everything settle, get familiar with the sound and establish a "baseline" again. So now I have tried Q5=1 but the results were not what I was expecting.

The first thing to mention is that my PC struggles with Q5=1 with "stops and jumps". More in hope than expectation I put in some more memory (i.e. 24Gb rather than the normal 12Gb). I was surprised that this actually reduced the problem significantly.

This test was with 2 Dexa clocks which makes the sound very clear well defined and dynamic. I found that changing Q5=1 seemed to "smudge" the sound so some of the clarity was lost it also sounded to be a little constricted. I increased SFS to 4 and higher and found that the upper mid sounded odd maybe nasally the only word I can think of.

So not what I was expecting at this stage.

Mmmmm it always concerns me when I am "out on a limb" (or not getting the same results as everyone else) but for sure I would not chose Q5=1 here to listen to music with as it loses all its magic. It would be interesting to hear what Nick finds in his system with 2 Dexa's.

So Nick?

Cheers

Paul

Hey Anthony - I just ordered an SPL meter well I needed one anyway!

Paul

OK so my better half has just been listening to Dexa versus not Dexa AND she insisted from the start that I must not tell her which NOS1 she was listening to (Dexa'd or standard). Sensible girl so "single blind" I tried to keep a poker face to not give any hints as to which was which.

So we started with "NOS A" and played the first track (Elvis Costello Wise Up Ghost - hard processed recording) and then I changed to "NOS B" and played the same again. OK mmm where is that "embarrassed" emoticon she said "have you turned the volume up?" to which I replied "no". She said "well it sounds louder, fuller, more out in the room, clearer, more detail, I can hear the emotion in the voice better I prefer this one" - the first one [NOS A] sounded flatter more recessed less clear not so engaging".

We tried the same comparison on a number of different tracks different types of music and every time she easily spotted which NOS was which and every time she preferred the Dexa'd version with similar comments to above.

But then we listened to Eldar - good quality jazz recording on NOS A - with this much better quality recording immediately she said "this is your NOS the blue one" so I said "well you ought to hear the other NOS before you make up your mind". So I changed to NOS B and she said straight away "no I got it wrong this is your NOS" - well maybe not very scientific that last "blind" test but anyway.

That is pretty much verbatim - anyway she 100% knew whether she was listening to Dexa or none Dexa - and preferred Dexa.

But that does not mean Dexa is more accurate of course but that is what happened.

By the way maybe when Ros said "louder" maybe I would say "dynamic" well anyway now you know maybe I was wrong!!

Oh by the way for quick comparison / switch over I left the PC end connected the DEXA'd pcie card - which does sound better than when connected to a none Dexa'd pcie card. So a bigger difference could have been heard with standard USB3 none Dexa'd card.

Cheers

Paul